STETSON HATS
By Maureen Timm
antiqueshoppefl.com
As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, September, 2003
The cowboy hat is an American institution. In the settling of the old west, primarily with wagons and horses as the mode of transportation, even before the railroad, the cowboy hat design was used as a very, very efficient item of clothing. The settlers had to travel as light as possible and carry multipurpose items, such as the cowboy hat. The cowboy hat was more than just a sun block its wearer could use it to drink water out of, gather berries, feed horses, and as a fan to cool down with.
There is no item of clothing worn that more closely identifies the USA as the cowboy hat. They were worn by men, women and children. You can go to any country, in any climate, and the cowboy hat will be distinctively recognized as an American icon.
In 1858 John B. Stetson and some companions went west to seek the benefits of a drier climate. The story goes that he had contracted consumption while working with his family in the hat trade. He later returned to Philadelphia, a healthy man in 1863, to reenter the hat trade.
During the summer of 1862, while sitting around a campfire near Pike's Peak, Stetson, who had been showing his fellow wanderers the felting process, decided to make a felt hat. Using the fur from jackrabbits, beavers, skunks, and any other fur-bearing animal he could find, Stetson made his first genuine Stetson hat. It was big and very peculiar looking, but it protected Stetson from the wind, rain, and sun. Some of his companions admired it, but most of them considered the odd looking hat to be a perfect object for jokes and wisecracks. However, when a Mexican bullwhacker offered him a five-dollar gold piece for it the kidding came to an abrupt halt; at the same time the first sale of a genuine Stetson hat was made
When Stetson returned to the hat trade in Philadelphia his first commercially successful hat was copied after the one he had made earlier around the Pike's Peak campfire. Called the "Boss of the Plains" it was a natural colored hat with a four inch brim, four inch top, and a strap which served as a band. At first it was made of one grade of material and sold for five dollars. During the years the material grew finer and the cost increased until finally a thirty-dollar price tag was attached to pure beaver, or nutria hat. This "Boss of the Plains" is truly the hat from which all of our modern Stetsons evolved. The old Army campaign hat is thought by many to be the first ranger type hat worn by park rangers. Others believe that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Stetson, adopted in 1901, was the one that influenced the evolution of our present hat. In either case, through the years our Stetson has been at one time or another a "Boss of the Plains" modified "ten-gallon" a soft-brim Army campaign style and finally, stiff-brim Park Ranger Stetson.
The original uniforms of the National Park Service, established in 1916, including the hat, were actually military type uniforms, adapted from those used during the period when the parks were administered by the military. In 1934 when the Stetson Company standardized the manufacturing of the Ranger Stetson, Park Rangers began wearing the stiff-brim, Belgian Belly color, named after the beautiful reddish buff, pastel like color of the underfur of the Belgian Hare.
Most California State Park Rangers wore the early soft-brim Stetson from the very birth of our system. At the first State Park Employees' Conference in 1938, a uniform study was requested. In 1939 the Uniform Committee recommended a State Park Uniform consisting of Lincoln gray-green trousers and jacket, gray shirt, black tie, black leather goods, and the stiff-brim Stetson.
The hat has been called by many names, "Brush Cutter" "Lily Pad" "Smokey the Bear" and other more colorful but unprintable ones. It has been used for many purposes including protection from the wind, sun, rain and falling objects. It was also used to carry drinking water to feed and water saddle and pack stock, to fan campfires, to shoo flies and mosquitoes, as a pillow and for many other useful purposes. Call it what you may, but wear it proudly! This hat has become the symbol of an unusual group of men, men who have dedicated their lives to the protection and administration of our wilderness and natural resources. It is fitting that it be known by the name of a man who regained his health in the outdoors we all love so well.
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